


No Regrets

by kastron (decidueye)



Category: Leverage, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-25
Updated: 2019-09-25
Packaged: 2020-10-28 01:00:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20769887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/decidueye/pseuds/kastron
Summary: Set in Telaryn's the Hero and the Bad Boy series: Clint (Hawkeye) is called on to rescue his five year old stepdaughter Hanifah from an attack by white supremacists on his aunt and uncle's home. Clint has never seen himself as particularly good with children, and the circumstances of Hani's birth have always prompted him to keep the little girl at arm's length. Now though, he must move past his limitations and admit his feelings - otherwise he will lose the most important person in his husband's life





	No Regrets

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Telaryn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Telaryn/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Your First Step (Into a Larger World)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15777573) by [Telaryn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Telaryn/pseuds/Telaryn). 

> it was a lot of fun to revisit this universe and these characters! i focused mainly on Clint's thought process and where the relationship could go from here: Tel, i really hope you enjoy it!

“Does Quinn know?”

The van was too big for four people, especially people with presences as big as theirs, but they huddled together anyway. Nat asked the question that everyone was thinking, looking at Clint with discerning eyes. He huffed.

“If he did, do you think there’s a chance he wouldn’t be here right now? No, he’s in Barbados on some business with Stark. It won’t be long before Tony gets hold of the news, but he’ll probably try to keep Quinn from it for a little longer.”

Even Tony, who loved to cause trouble, would know that telling Quinn his daughter had been kidnapped by white supremacists would only result in more deaths on both sides. He was the wrong man for the mission, and the only man who wouldn’t accept that, so he had to be kept out of it for as long as possible. Still, finding out later would crush Quinn, Clint knew, and that’s why he was here: to protect Hannifah in his stead. Nat nodded, wordlessly handing a tablet over to Clint, and his heart sunk when he glanced down to look at it.

Clint had only seen Hannifah three times in the five years she was born; truthfully, he hadn’t wanted it to be any different. The awe of holding someone small and connected to the one he loved faded quickly when her dark curls began to resemble her mother’s. Two years ago, Hannifah had thrown a tantrum when Quinn didn’t immediately respond to her outstretched arms, and the stubborn jut of her jaw was enough to send Clint over the edge. He had used her shrieking and his hearing aid as an excuse to remove himself, and never took advantage of lapses in Hannifah’s guardians’ security again.

If he’d known the next time he saw her would be on a security feed, held tightly against her aunt’s chest to hide her vision from the guns pointed at them, a victim of prejudice and circumstance, would he have avoided her so tenaciously? The pit expanding in Clint’s stomach told him that he didn’t know, and he probably never would.

“We can’t just  _ sit _ here…” Jess was barely able to restrain Kamala at this point. It wasn’t just Hannifah in there for her. Clint took in the tension holding her features, the restless twitch of her fingers, and knew she wouldn’t last much longer.

“You’re right,” Clint said. “But you’re too involved. You need to stay outside or you’ll make things worse.”

A terrible thing to say to a teenager, but he had only ever dealt with Kate, who you couldn’t say anything right to anyway. Kamala slammed her fist against the wall of the van.

“And you’re not?” she asked.

“No!” He said sharply. His gut grew tighter, more sickly. “I’m not. That’s exactly why I need to go.”

Kamala’s eyes widened, and then she nodded slowly. Clint had long since thought that he had been knocked off the new Ms Marvel’s pedestal, but it seemed that he could always find new ways to disappoint her. Perhaps this time, though, he could take a step to redeeming himself.

“You should be at the front, anyway,” he said. “I want the asshats to see exactly who defends this country when they’re forced out.”

Kamala laughed at this, skeptical, but it seemed to pacify her. Clint had never been one for chasing glory anyway - but infiltration, he was good at.

Lucky that security at the Sahars’ was so lax, Clint thought as he scaled the wall of the house, until he comprehended that their attackers had probably gotten in the same way. Then again, maybe they hadn’t needed to - there were five of them, big and with guns, and they could have just as easily stormed the front door. In the current climate, who knows if the police would come. Lowering himself silently into the bathroom, he thought of the difficulties Hannifah would face, encapsulated in this event, that neither he nor Quinn could solve. Kamala probably wouldn’t have even told them about the threats if it hadn’t resulted in this; it was something that she, and even Hannifah had adjusted to. 

She was five years old and already had so much to deal with. Clint felt sick to his stomach - the kid needed all the support she could get, and however discreetly, he had turned his back on her.

Muffled voices came from the living room. Mrs Sahar was shaking but firm.

“Please, at least let Hannifah go. She’s just a child, you can’t possibly have anything against her.”

“A child raised by  _ you _ . We know who you are,” a gruff voice spat. His words were harsh enough that the mask he was wearing did nothing to soften them. Clint recognised him as Burt Yarlton, the leader of a fanatic offshoot of Hydra that was so radical and disorganised that even Hydra had renounced all ties to them. “The kid’s as guilty as anyone. With a bitch like that for a mother, how could she not be a threat?”

No one hated Badria Sahar more than Clint - not even Quinn, he was sure, now that she had given him a daughter - and Clint knew that he was being hypocritical, but hearing the accusation laced in Hannifah’s involuntary association with her mother in someone else’s mouth made him snarl, fingers tightening around the bow in his hands. That racist had only heard about Badria through the news, he had none of the visceral, haunting memories that Clint had, and yet he was ready to tar a  _ five year old _ who didn’t ask to be conceived the way she was with the same brush.

It didn’t matter that the brush existed whether Badria was a criminal or not; the fact that Clint had harboured the same thoughts, pushed down deep but spreading over him like moss, was a knife to the stomach. He braced himself against the wall, closing his eyes and catching his breath.

_ “...Clint, Clint. Can you hear me?” _

Nat’s voice dropped an anchor into the storm of his thoughts and he grasped the chain, following it up for air. He couldn’t speak - the house was too small and he would be heard for sure - but he quietly huffed an ascent. Nat was the only person he trusted to pull him out of a guilt spiral without giving him credit where it wasn’t due. They were bad people; they had been bad people. She had no desire to sugar coat that.

_ “They’re directly below you. You could blast the ceiling… _ ”

Clint shook his head minutely. He couldn’t destroy Hannifah’s home, even to save her life. She was too young to understand and would only see him as a part of the crisis that hit. Instead, he found the stairs, testing each of them with his foot and clinging to the bannister to prevent them from creaking as he descended.

_ “You’ll have to be quick. One wrong move and they might shoot.” _

He didn’t need telling twice. A mental assessment of his inventory presented Clint with two plans, and the first was quickly dismissed as too much of a risk. He had saved lives before - young, fragile lives - but the stakes had never felt as high as they did right now. Hannifah’s short existence, the existence he had taken for granted and seen, if anything, as a burden, was in his hands.

Clint moved in moments. Smoke filled the air when he launched an arrow, and the targets only had time to cough twice before he took them out. One arrow at close range pierced two abdomens, and a swift elbow to the temple of the third had him keeling over. Mrs Sahir - formidable as she was - had already shielded Hannifah’s face from the smoke, and she resisted for a moment as Clint tried to take Hannifah into his arms, yielding only when he told her that Kamala was outside. She allowed herself to be led towards the door and Clint held Hannifah tightly in one arm, clearing the way for them with the other.

It had been more than a year since Hannifah last saw him. She had grown so much, young fat cushioning her cheeks and hair falling past her shoulders where it had once just curled around her ears. Clint had gained more scars and more grey hairs, his face transformed by age and the stress of work - and his relationship - but she tucked her nose against his throat like he was an old friend. Her hair smelled like coconut and talcum, powerful in spite of the smoke, and fingers, still so tiny, clutched at his shirt tightly.

The smoke was overpowering; tears pricked at Clint’s eyes and his chest heaved. He ran down the path of the house, stopping short of Mrs Sahir now in Kamala’s arms, and Jess and Nat stormed past him for the clean up.

Hannifah was safe. Clint wouldn’t have to tell Quinn that he’d lost her; wouldn’t have to wrestle with his own complicated feelings of what that would mean to him.

His knees buckled when Hannifah’s small hand found its way to his cheek, patting it lightly. She stared at him earnestly, brown eyes full of warmth and flecked with hazel, so unequivocally  _ Quinn’s _ . Perhaps, he thought as he took her hand in his own, squeezing it tightly and aware of the way he trembled, his feelings weren’t so complicated after all.


End file.
